Elections and Lawfare: Where Will Be The Last Battle In The Battle For The Senate? The Courts.

“Lawfare” means the use of law and legal proceedings by a nation or a group against another nation or group to advance military or foreign p;ocu goals. There’s a great blog titled “Lawfare” run by Brookings, and the term is used frequently and understood as the continuation of confl;oct by other, law-related means.

“Political lawfare” has always been around the margins of redistricting law and with the occasional bogus prosecution of a political enemy, but it began to be a regularly recurring feature of American politics with the epic court battle launched by Al Gore in Florida against George W. Bush in the aftermath of the 2000 elections.

A handful of governor’s races could also end up in overtime court battles with the dreary business of ballot-by-ballot challenges and recounts replace the cut and slash of electioneering via ads and debates. It isn’t a happy turn of events, but as the stakes around who controls government have grown, so have innovations in gain office including lawsuits and counter-claims.

I closed my interview with O’Brien and my column tomorrow with the same admonition: Every candidate ought to be demanding of every campaign manager a briefing on their legal team’s plans for making sure the polls are conducted accordion to law and every ballot counted just once and fairly, and every bogus ballot challenged and tossed out. Waiting for election night to ask for the legal plan is guaranteeing a loss in court.